Massillon's Seismic Design Category, explained

Massillon carries Seismic Design Category B under USGS's ASCE 7-16 model. Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. That puts Massillon in the 32th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 32% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

Where Massillon sits in Ohio

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.054g, short-period spectral response 0.107g, 1-second spectral response 0.049g. Among 254 Ohio cities in this dataset, Massillon ranks 237 for seismic hazard, the 7th percentile within the state. About 32,750 people live in Massillon, Ohio.

Retrofit economics for Massillon

Outside California, no state-level retrofit grant equivalent to Brace + Bolt could be found for Ohio. A typical retrofit still runs $5,000-$10,000 nationally, about $7,000 for a common single-family job.

Insuring against this, not just retrofitting

Outside California, earthquake coverage is typically sold as an endorsement added to a standard homeowners policy, not a separate product - worth asking about directly when getting a home-insurance quote for a Massillon address.

More on how this number was built

The methodology guide covers exactly how USGS's public design-maps API produced Massillon's numbers. The guide to what a Seismic Design Category actually means covers why a category is never a substitute for an engineer's assessment of one specific house.